Tiva ‘shippers, brace for impact: Without a Trace vet Enrique Murciano is joining the cast of NCIS for multiple episodes as the oft-referred-to-but-never-seen new man in Ziva’s (Cote de Pablo) life.

Exec producer Gary Glasberg says the character, CIA agent Ray Cruz, will prove to be a “fun, smart, exciting addition” to the show, adding “We can’t wait to watch Enrique bring him to life and interact with the NCIS team.”

As I reported in last week’s Ask Ausiello, Ray will be introduced in this season’s 20th episode. “I think it’s going to be interesting,” Michael Weatherly, the guy who puts the Tony in Tiva, recently said of Ray’s arrival. “Tony cares about Ziva and wants to make sure she’s not mixed up with the wrong kind of guy, so he’s going to be watchful and protective of her.”

That is if he’s not too busy generating sparks with the new girl in his life — agent Erica Jane “EJ” Barrett, played by Brothers & Sisters‘ Sarah Jane Morris. For more on that, check out Matt Mitovich’s complete Q&A with Weatherly on Tuesday.

Thoughts? Does Murciano’s casting have you questioning your allegiance to Tiva? Hit the comments!

I will never give up on Tiva either. Thinking back to JAG we had to wait 10 years and the final episode to finally get Harm & Mack together. I hope we don’t have to wait that long but will keep on hoping until the final signoff.

I have been a fan of NCIS forever. I have been waiting for Tony and Ziva to become a couple. The chemistry between them is awesome. I will be so upset if they don’t get together. This new female agent has no chemistry. If she and Tony become a couple I will not be so anxious to watch. Tony and Ziva belong together.

Never was a Tiva-ette. Don’t think there’s *anything* there – especially after S6. Tony deserves *way* more than an abusive, hot – tempered, uncontrolled female. Here’s hoping Ray takes Ziva off into the sunset

And you’re a single minded fan who clearly isn’t a fan of NCIS because the whole team forgave her, the writer’s wrote her that way, and people like you take the entire thing way out of line. She hit him once… did not put her hand on the trigger, get the frig OVER IT!

And who’s to say she woould’t do it again if (when?) something else pisses her off? It doesn’t matter that she “didn’t put her hand on the trigger”, she had him on the ground with a gun pointed at him. I never liked the way that whole story arc was handled – and I don’t understand why Tony or Gibbs were so quick to forgive her or, for that matter, why they still trust her at all. If I were in law enforcement and my partner attacked me (which is what she did) and pointed a gun at me, I’d be hard-pressed to trust him or her to have my back. This was badly written and badly handled, in my opinion. I could believe it better if we’d seen anything more than a quick apology in a bathroom.

Okay okay okay okay, HONEY.
This is all wrong. How would you react when your soul mate, and love of your life KILLED YOUR BOYFRIEND.
What would YOU do if your [practically, daughter] got SENT TO A PRISON CAMP AND ALMOST DIED AFTER YOU LEFT THEM WITH THE PERSON WHO SENT HER THERE. wouldn’t YOU forgive&forget awfully fast, and also, of course Tony forgave her asap, he almost LOST her, she almost DIED. so all the other little things, don’t matter.
And with the whole “attack” tony saw it coming, he was the one pushing and pushing for her to do something. to “get it out of her system”.

And the whole Rivkin thing didn’t just “piss her off” she lost the person she thought she loved.

First off, the writers have never given us any evidence that Tony is Ziva’s soulmate or vice versa. There’s certainly been sexual tension and flirting between them (and maybe even sex during the time they were in Paris) but nothing to suggest that they’re madly in love with each other. And I wouldn’t have a boyfriend if I had a soulmate/love of my life in the first place.

Second, I didn’t say that I didn’t understand their motivations for avenging Ziva’s “death” – I believe they both felt responsible about what happened to her, rightfully or not. Of the whole mess that was the end of season six and the beginning of season seven, that’s the one part I do feel was handled okay. Not well, but okay.

With regards to the fogiveness aspect, I don’t consider having someone hit you in the shoulder you’ve been stabbed in, forcing you to the ground, pointing a gun at you and threatening to kill you a “little thing”, but hey, that’s just me. My complaint is not that they forgave her, although reading my original post it does come across that way. My complaint is that I would have liked to see more than just a quick apology in the middle of the mens’ room.

Heck, I would have liked to see Ziva say to Gibbs “I’m sorry I made you choose”. I would have liked to see Tony say “yeah, you hurt me, but I understand why”. I would have liked to see Gibbs say “I’m sorry I chose you over Tony, but you gave me no choice” (yeah, I know apologies are a sign of weakness, but he’s done it before). In short, I would have liked to see anything more than what we got, which is a quick glossing over the events of the previous season. I guess it’s to be assumed that this all happened “off screen”, but it would have been nice nonetheless.

For what it’s worth, I feel the same about the end of season seven and beginning of season eight (so it’s not just a Tony/Ziva thing). I felt that the ramifications of Gibbs’ murdering Pedro Hernandez as it affected Team Gibbs weren’t really addressed that much. Sure we had some great Gibbs/Abby scenes, but how did the others feel about it? Ziva I can see understanding, but what about Tony and McGee? And Ducky for that matter. But it was never really addressed by the writers.

I understand that they only have so much time and have to fit a lot in, but sometimes it seems like a lot is just glossed over and we’re left wondering “hey, what’s the fall out of this”? Or turn to fanfiction, where there seem to be all sorts of takes on these questions. :-)

I will concede the point that the Rivkin thing was more than just a case of pissing her off – I misspoke there. And maybe she wouldn’t react that way again – maybe it was due to that specific set of circumstances. I still think was glossed over too easily. They touched on it a bit in the shrink episode, which would have been the perfect place to deal with a lot of that. However, they chose to go in another direction with that, not that it was a bad thing – it’s one of my favourite season eight episodes so far.

I’ve never been a fan of the whole Tiva thing either. I prefer them as friends and colleagues, not a couple. But I don’t want Ziva to “go off into the sunset”. She’s an integrel part of the team and chemistry wouldn’t be as good without her.

Ziva gets a hottie! Yay! But problem…big problem…ITS THE WRONG HOTTIE!!! Tony & Ziva better get their heads on straight and their hearts uncomplicated and just get with it already. Tiva love, always and forever.

i dont care who he is, im a tiva shipper! tony and ziva are the reason i got hooked to this show (first ep i saw was undercovers) and i refuse to give up on them. i know mr. miami wont be around long, tiva is forever :)

Tiva all the way!! Ray, and I guess this EJ, are just more bumps (although SIX seasons of bumps is VERY frustrating) on the road to Tony and Ziva saying “to hell with rule 12″ and acting on the feelings they both know are there.

Yup – all the Tiva shippers are insanely in love with Ziva. Tony fans on the other hand can’t stand Tiva because of how badly she treats him. Let’s hope for his sake that he can have a nice relationship with EJ or focus on his career while Ziva flies off to Miami to make babies with CI-RAY, and we never have to suffer through another boring, badly written second of Tiva again.

And when I say “Tiva” this largely amounts to (repeatedly): “You’re jealous, Tony”, “Let me just suck my fingers and give Tony a sultry look”, “Are you jealous, Tony?”, “I will now throw Tony to the floor and pull my gun on him as nothing indicates love and attraction better than deadly physical assault”, “Priceless contents handle with care – barf! I look and feel so uncomfortable saying this stupid line to the Princess with anger management issues who threw me around when I had a broken arm?”, “Why, I think you are jealous, Tony” etc etc etc ad infinitem).

If Tiva is the endgame, then it makes a mockery of everything that came before. I only hope it isn’t. This show doesn’t need bad romance. It’s much better when it’s about the team.

I honestly don’t care anymore, too long too late and just plain boring now. As Andrew Marlowe said “If you wait too long to get a couple together then they stop having sparks and become more like brother and sister and that is NOT where you want to be”

You said it perfectly. They waited too long and now this couple has officially lost all appeal. Season 7 would have been the perfect time to make something happen, especially after the whole Paris thing. But they choose to ignore it and instead insist on rehashing the same storylines from seasons past. No point hinting at something that’s never gonna happen.

I am a TIVA fan and I am not looking forward to the EJ storyline AT ALL. They have been building up the Ray arc all season so I am curious to see where this story leads, but I do not want a permanent (romantic) relationship for Ziva. I’m hoping he is a really hot gay friend.

Woo, you guys! I got pretty far down this time before seeing all the anti-Tiva comments. Oh, they’re coming, I’m sure. In the meantime, while they work their way out of the woodwork, I’ll answer the on topic question: Does this make my Tiva allegiance waver?
No, but I don’t see Tiva actually getting together until the very end, so… bring on that sexy man!

I’m with you. Although I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a Tiva fan. I’ve gotten go the point where I really don’t care. But I also never expected them to get together before the end of the series. I would be surprised if they did. I’ve also gotten the impression this season that Ray isn’t really her boyfriend…Tony has just assumed so and she hasn’t corrected him.

I still believe Tony having a new love interest and Ziva having Ray is something that is GOOD for Tiva because both characters need a catalyst (or 2 catalysts) to be willing to change something about their dynamic.
I kinda get the feeling that they are planing towards tiva in a special way. This whole EJ and Ray story just smells fishy.

They wouldn’t introduce those two love interests before the season finale without a damn good reason…

Meh. Love my Without a Trace guys but couldn’t care less about Ray. I guess as long as he stays as a recurring character I’ll be fine (and no jealous Tony thanks). As it is some of the full time regulars don’t get all that much screentime in the first place.

Great casting. At least half the reason I watched Without a Trace was because of him. They will be one very incendiary couple. While I liked the idea of Tony and Ziva together, I think I like the idea of the two of them having other partners even better. As long as they don’t make them obviously wrong partners for them, like they usually have for Gibbs. Couldn’t stand Rena Sofer’s character. The only one I really liked with him was Colonel Mann. I thought she was a terrific match for him. Smart, competent, confident, mature and not needy or bitchy.

Oh yes thank you NCIS gods I love you Enrique Murciano are you kidding me I love him and he and Cote will be damn hot. Sorry Michael Weatherly I love you, but yes this guys just like hot. I am a huge TIVA fan by the way, but I would be quite happy to see them both with someone that doesn’t turn out to be evil or an undercover mission in Tony’s case. The possibility of either of these working out for longer than a season is unfortunately for me ’cause of hotness up there a real disappointment. So please please as much as I want TIVA to be together I beg you NCIS writers don’t make Ray or EJ(cause I also love Sarah Jane Morris) bad. But heck since when do writers ever listen one of them will probably end up being killed or something knowing this show.

Sweet niblets! I had promised myself I would give Ray a chance, odds are THAT I’M GOING TO LOVE HIM! Enrique Murciano is smoking hot! And he seems like such a goofball in real life, perfect for the cast who is known to be very silly :)

Enrique Murciano….!!! Thank you PTB. Ziva and Ray are definitely my fav couple now, and the best part: it’s not a ship. A super hot couple make things sizzle a bit, you know, no more more of the same. Yay!!!

This is the last night I will watch NCIS. Tony creeping to the shower to get it on with some floozy he doesn’t even know made me nauseous! So much flirting and Tony told Ziva under the truth serum that he couldn’t live without her, so what are we fans supposed to expect? We’ve been waiting for two years now for a romantic involvment or secret trysts between them, and I really don’t like the show that much. Need something different. Need Tiva. If Tony can carry on a love life with someone in the office, it could just as easily have been Ziva. It’s obvious she cares for him too. GOODBYE NCIS!

Does anyone else feel like this new chick, EJ, and Tony already almost kissing is just a bit forced, kinda rushed? I mean, she shows up at the top of the hour, throughout the episode there are some glances and he looks over the cubicle at her desk with that goofy smile of his. Suddenly they’re kissing by a shower…yah cause that’s not just packed with sensuality! *rolls eyes* Just doesn’t feel realistic to me. Abby and McGee, Tony and Ziva, even Gibbs and Colonal Mann were given more time to show us their chemistry developing than one hour!

I agree with you. It feels too rushed and forced as if the TPTB are catering to the anti-Tiva fans out there. I thought Tony was to show some maturity in this episode, this is not my defination of maturity – more like a teenage boy in heat (no offense to teenage boys out there). At least with the Ziva/Ray arc, they have been building a relationship for several months (behind the scene). I am still reeling from the fact he went from friend to boyfriend at break neck speed (I think I have whip lash). To me there is something just a little off about EJ, can’t put my finger on it, but I don’t get a good vibe from her – I think she is trouble and not just for Tiva- but for the team in general. Please please please PTB, let’s not go the whole jealousy arc yet again, let’s let Tony and Ziva have mature relationships not ones of high school musical.

Well, I’m a Tiva shipper! Tiva all the way ! But I’m a little confused about them getting new love interests… Like a year ago or something Tony told Ziva that he couldn’t live without her ? And then there was Paris… And now this ? I loved how Ziva forgave Tony after shooting her boyfriend.. I’m a bit confused.. I love the show. Someday I’ll marry it :) Without NCIS, my life would be nothing ! Soo, actually I’m a bit excited about this Ray guy? But also a little scared? I’ve always kept my vote on Tiva, and I’ll always do .. And now with all those boyfriends and stuff, they better have a FANTASTIC season finale ! I think they have.. Maybe some Tiva related, Uh Uh That would be EPIC ! Btw, I don’t like E.J, she’s a little annoying ? But that’s maybe because I’m a Tiva!
I’ll hope for Tiva in the end, or at least in the LAST season !

I am not a fan of any of the love interests. They slow the storytelling down.

When Tony was involved with Jeanne, until I saw where that story line was going, I would zoom through those scenes because I could care less.

I watch an action show for action. If this were a romantic drama, then there would not be a need for crimes or the connections to the intelligence community (I refer specifically to the episode, “Enemies Foreign,” which repeats on Tuesday and explains the relationships between Ziva’s dad, Leon and Gibbs.)

To the showrunner, why mess with success? When the story gets melancholy, so does the acting. (Nice job though on tying up the Kate strings with her sister as the visiting psychologist.)